word count

December – Milestone – So Distracted

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Hey guys, welcome back! Hope everyone who celebrated had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was nice and quiet and I think it was the most food I’ve eaten in months. (And I’m ok with that.)

Now here we are in December and there is just so much going on. I’ve been in full holiday shopping mode while trying to create some new things for one of my online shops (and failing miserably) as well as still trying like hell to shake the illness that has been plaguing me since August.

I’m also a huge holiday movie and tv specials kind of girl. Even as a kid, I couldn’t wait to get a tv guide and a highlighter and search for every version of a Christmas Carol and crazy animated special being shown on tv. These days, I look online every single day and make a list (check it twice) and then see what I can squeeze in to watch when I can. As I’ve said many times here, I’m a five year old in a very much not five year old body and this time of the year really brings it out in me. It’s the stuff like this that keeps the kid in me alive though. I still sing to the Grinch and Heat Miser and all the fun shows they only show this time of the year.

I also went a little crazy between Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. I’m a shopaholic at heart and during this festive season, I go nuts. Yes I got some books for myself, the sales were just too good!) Hopefully everyone will like what I’ve gotten and that my inner Santa has worked its magic.

All of this is to say…I’ve been distracted as hell from working properly on my book. I mean, I still have been putting the hours in, I really have. However, I’ve been fading much earlier while working and most of that though is due to the fact that I just haven’t been feeling well. Plus, the meds and the fevers have me a little loopy. Not that there is much of a difference than how I normally am, you can ask anyone who knows me about this. lol

I am, however, proud to say that I have hit a major milestone of words cut so far. Ready? I’ve cut just over 20,000 words! Ok so I still have hundreds of thousands to go, but still, this is a good chunk taken out and it is definitely a good start.

I am nowhere near the internal deadline I put in place for myself and that is bumming me out. But seeing this number appear tonight was the big shot of confidence that I needed. Just knowing that I hit that and that it’s truly showing just how hard I’ve been working? Huge. Really, really huge. So as distracted as I’ve been, I really am seeing the progress that I’ve been making. For someone like myself, this is so important.

This book has been an even larger undertaking than I ever imagined. I knew of course it would be the hardest work I’ve ever done. I’m not blind to that. But when I saw how high my word count was and what I’d need to cut in order to submit it, my old self would have given up and started work on a new one. I’m completely dedicated to this manuscript. It invades my thoughts 24/7, including my sleep time. Seeing actual proof that I’ve been making this dent has me excited knowing that yes, I CAN do this! I WILL do this! I will also get multiple books out of this story and I think knowing that, is a big bonus that is also keeping me going.

Even now with the holiday season upon us and all of life’s distractions, this work is keeping me going. And I truly mean that. Every couple of days, it feels like labor, can’t lie about that. Again, I think it’s just because I haven’t been feeling well. All that aside, once I sit and really get into it every night, I know it’s where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing. To keep it festive, I got myself holiday themed keys for my keyboard to keep me on track because that’s the kind of grown up I am!

And that is where I will leave you today.

Thanks so much for being here and please remember, if you’d like to help support my website and get some holiday shopping done? You can do so by clicking on one of the links around the site as well as the links below. Unfortunately, text links here are NOT underlined so be sure to hover over links if you’re interested in something. Thanks for understanding.

Until next time all…cheers!

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If you’ve made it this far, thank you SO much and I’m done pushing my shops for now. 😉See you soon! 🥰

Nights – Obsessed – Thousands Down

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Photo credit: me 🙂

Hey guys, welcome back. I’m sorry I haven’t been exactly consistent here lately. Between being sick and working my ass off on this book, I’ve been losing time for other things. That, of course, needs to change.

However, happy to say that I’m still here and hopefully, so are you!

I’ve been working obsessively on this manuscript and over the past week, week and half, I’ve been able to shave over 7100 words! I’ve even figured out the formula for doing so. I’ve been reworking chapters, changing perspectives and even changing around the order of some chapters.

What’s funny is that for someone who wrote extensively for months, (I mean, over 460,000 words from April to September is pretty extensive) but only cutting and pasting for the last month and a half, my fingers are not as used to flying across the keyboard as they once were.

Last night alone, I rewrote three chapters and my hands were asking me why. I actually found myself laughing. Talking to my fingers and giving them a pep talk. I’ve mentioned before that I have issues with arthritis and other illnesses (yes, I‘m a medical mess) so to unleash them all over again and have them start to do their thing after a much needed break? Sue me for wanting to cheer my fingers on. After all, I need my hands to write. That’s all I want to do. And there is only so much caffeine can help with…even though it is the most wonderful substance on Planet Earth.

So here I am, obsessing night after night creating and in many ways, recreating what I’ve already written to sculpt my words into a better version of what it once was. But we all do this, right? Ok, so maybe not the whole cheerleader thing, but the revising over and over again of our work. I’m starting to truly believe that the writing itself is the ‘easy’ part. That the writing is only 10% of what happens when creating a book. The other 90%? Cutting, moving, reorganizing, cursing and remolding the dialogues into something so tangible that it will become something that you didn’t even envision in the first draft. And in my case, it’s more like 90% cursing 10% everything else.

What I’m having fun with now is giving another main character a bigger voice. Giving him his own perspective. I’ve been really surprised how easy I’ve found it getting into his head. I think it may be because I’ve spent so much time with these characters now that I know what makes them tick. But writing his side has opened up so much more of the story that can be introduced a little earlier than I had originally. For the reader, this is a very good thing. For the writer, it’s giving me more of a creative option that I wish I had seen, or rather utilized earlier. But now that it’s here? I’m going to make the most of it.

In the meantime, this has been an extremely interesting exercise in patience, something I am famous for not having. I think that has been the biggest surprise of all. As impatient as I am for getting this finished, now knowing that the story can be taken up a notch? I’m here for all of it…and hope that in the long run, this will end up being the absolute best that it can be.

And that is where I will leave you for today. Thank you as always for coming back and I do hope to get back to posting more here. In the meantime, having you all bear with me while I’ve been dealing with (what they now think may be long covid), has kept me going and I will never be able to thank you enough for that. You all take care of yourself and remember, Halloween candy has no calories. So treat yourself! (Yes, this is the lie I tell myself every year. Work with me.)

Until next time…cheers all!

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To follow me on social, including #booktok: linktr.ee/promosocially

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Already looking for holiday gifts? Check out the links here on my site, from books to gifts for writers and readers alike, I’ve got a whole lot to see and much of it has been designed by me!

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Looking for a new read? Hit the On the Bookshelf pages here on the site or head to PangoBooks.com (or the PangoBooks app) and use my code: NewChapterCove for $5 off your order.

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If you’ve made it this far, I thank you again. Hope you are all enjoying the Fall season! 🍁🍁🍁

First Draft – Word Count – Totally Screwed

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Photo credit: annekarakash on Pixabay.

Hey all, welcome back, hope you all had a great weekend. I’m going to jump right in, because I’m so excited to announce that I have finished the first draft of my book! Woo-hoo!

I still can’t believe it’s done and of course now the hard work really needs to happen, the serious editing. If you’ve been following along here, you know that I’ve been editing like crazy throughout this process including over the course of five rereads of the manuscript. However, just as I feared, I went over the word count goal. Not even by a little bit either.

From doing all of my research on how to get published traditionally, when submitting to a literary agent, there is a magical word count number that will get you noticed. Depending on the genre and the agent, it can be from 80,000 to 140,000 with the sweet spot being about 100,000. Mine isn’t even close to this.

When I checked my count, I was more than shocked to find that since April, I have written, (are you ready?) 437,404 words! And no, that is not a typo.

I knew I was in trouble when I was combining the chapters into one document and Google docs wouldn’t allow any more chapters into it. Did you know that there is a 1.5mil character limit in docs? Well, now you do. And so do I! I had to break the book up into two separate files.

I’ve done editing work in the past for others and have been brutal when I needed to be. But this is my own work. To me, every word is needed for the story to unfold properly. I’m now rethinking this of course. It is unbelievable to me that I have to cut almost 340,000 words of my own work. I have only rarely in my life used the word unfathomable, but I think this occasion calls for it.

Apparently I write the way I talk and if you know me in person, you know this to be true.

So now comes phase two. Lots of cutting, lots of red ink on printed pages and lots of my work going down the drain as I figure out how to shape this story into something that will not only get the attention of an agent, but will make sense and be readable to my future audience. To say that I’m totally screwed is an understatement but I am up for the challenge!

Of course the real challenge is also going to be not writing the sequel while I’m editing this one…although I have thought about using what I cut from this work in the next book. Seems sensible, no?

Anywhoo, that’s what’s going on here. While I’m more than happy and ecstatic that this book is now in its next phase, I’m already panicked about the work that needs to be done. For now? I’m going to enjoy the accomplishment and maybe, take the night off.

And that is where I’m leaving you for today. Until next time…cheers! ☺️

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If you’d like to follow me on social and check out my shops: linktr.ee/promosocially

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If you’d like to help support this site, you can click on the Ko-Fi icon on the site or click: HERE

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Looking for some cool Fall and Halloween stuff? I have lots that I’ve designed that you can see in my other shops at: linktr.ee/stuffwemade

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And if you’ve made it this far, I thank you. I very much appreciate your following along the journey with me. Thanks again and see you all soon! 🍁 

Stuck – Stuck – More Stuck

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Photo credit: picjumbo_com at Pixabay.

Hey guys, welcome back! As I sit here thinking of something to write, I’m also thinking how thankful I am to have you all to write for. I’ve been so lucky to have an audience for my posts, my ramblings, my writing journey. When I was writing my first book, I didn’t do this. It took me years to finish that first draft. It is taking even longer to edit it. But this current work in progress, well, this has been a mission. This has been my baby and I’m so glad I am documenting this ride of mine. I’ve heard from other authors that they are going through similar situations as mine and I’m so glad I’m not alone.

For example, I’m currently stuck. Like really stuck. I was getting close to writing the last chapters of this book. Then I stalled. Not just because a part of me doesn’t want this story to end, but because I thought of a whole new way to tell it!

So ok, I go back to the beginning again, I wrote an alternate first chapter. I liked it a lot and it gave me more ideas. What’s wrong with this? Plenty.

Although the amount of work it would take to rewrite the story again from another perspective is daunting, it would also lend more depth to it as a whole so there’s that. Also, my current word count is huge. Like, huge. The editing process for this book is going to be massive and is going to kill me to cut as much as I need to.

I have read and reread this work so many times, it is how I want it to be right now. Well, that’s at this current moment. It changes minute to minute. I think it’s because I don’t want to finish it just yet and am looking for excuses to postpone the last chapters. I’ll snap out of it of course, but in the meantime, I’m torn…I’m…stuck.

Do I go back and add to this and offer two perspectives or do I just go in and edit what I already have? I keep going back and forth on the best way to proceed and in the process, I just keep reading it over and over again. So, I continue to be stuck.

I’m hoping the answer will come to me between the lines. That there will be something that jumps out at me to say “this is it!” So far, nothing. The back and forth continues and then I write the other perspective. If I continue doing that, then it’s even more words I’ll have to cut.

I mentioned in my last post that I did some editing work in my past. I know I can be brutal when I have to be when reworking sentences, paragraphs, chapters. But that is with someone else’s work. With my own? Let’s just say that I don’t take criticism very well, even my own. When I wrote for others and something of mine needed to be edited? I didn’t take it well at all. Just the idea of someone else hacking up my work gives me a stomach ache. But seriously the word count? Massive. So the hacking must be done.

Also, the amount of research going into this book has been a big part of this journey. Not just for the story itself, but also for the work. Learning about querying agents, traditional publishing vs. self publishing, learning from other authors and bouncing ideas off of them and of course, word counts. I’ve been looking at other books in the same genre that I love to see what their counts are. Chapter length, page count, all of it. This is going to be the first book of mine that I want to get out there and it needs to reflect my best work. I want to get it right. I think this is one of the reasons I’ve been freaking out about all of this and will continue to do so until I can finally say, “hey! My first draft is done!” Until then, I shall remain stuck.

I wish this was more uplifting, a little more motivational, but not every day can be like that. Some days, the reality sets in and we have to sit back and take a breath. Take a moment to reflect on what we are doing and if we are doing it the right way. Look at it from a fresh perspective and hope that when we complete what we have started, it is right with us. I will forever be proud of what I have written, which is why the idea of cutting so much is killing me. However, to get this out there to the readers? I will do what is needed to put out my best work possible. (Did I turn this post around at all? I hope so!)

And that is where I will leave you for today. Thanks so much again for being here, for reading my blog and for your support. For without you, I wouldn’t be here.

Until next time…Cheers!

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